Entropy

Entropy is both beloved ally and mortal enemy of life.

To understand the dichotomy of entropy we must delve deep into the heart of thermodynamics.
There are two fundamental laws of thermodynamics

Law #1: The total quantity of energy in the universe must remain constant.
Law #2: That the quality of that energy is constantly degraded irreversibly.

From these laws we can derive some general principals:
1) Ordered energy -> Disorganized energy
2) High quality energy -> Low-grade energy (heat)
3) Order -> Disorder
4) Improbability -> Probability

These principals outline a grim universe. At first glance they seem more compatible with a barren wasteland than a vibrant jungle. Thermodynamics demands constant and progressive degradation yet somehow we live in a world teaming with life and growth. Lets explore why.

The Genius of Life

Life is able to increase its internal order while simultaneously satisfying thermodynamics. At first glance this appears to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Instead of disorder and death life forms order and birth. Instead of probability and cessation it does the improbable and continues. Rather than disorganized heat it forms the ordered thought and action. Life is able to do this because it is a dissipative structure. It is a structure that achieves a reproducible state operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium in an environment in which it exchanges energy and matter.

Chemists can create complex high energy molecules in reactions that would not occur naturally by coupling those reactions with others that degrade other high energy molecules in low energy ones. As long as the combination of both reactions leads to an overall higher level of entropy the laws of thermodynamics are satisfied.Life has mastered this same process with stunning majesty. By coupling its existence to reactions that increase the entropy of the universe life is able to swim upstream against the tide of entropy. Plants harvest the energy of the sun. Animals consume that same energy indirectly.

Entropy is Mixedupness

There are numerous definitions of Entropy. When talking about the mechanics of life the most useful is the one given by statistical mechanics.

Entropy is the amount of additional information needed to specify the exact physical state of a system, given its thermodynamic specification.

Entropy is a measure of the uncertainty which remains about a system after its observable macroscopic properties, such as temperature, pressure and volume, have been taken into account. For a given set of macroscopic variables, the entropy measures the degree to which the probability of the system is spread out over different possible microstates.

The simple system of four balls traveling in the same direction, has less entropy than an otherwise identical system with 4 balls traveling in random directions as it takes more information to describe the exact physical state of the second system.

Entropy Devourers Life

All life struggles to avoid its eventual guaranteed entropic end.

The conditions of death, decay, cessation are higher entropy then the conditions of breathing, growth, and body integrity. Therefore life is always in constant danger of death able to delay it's destruction only by constant feeding. Deprived of energy for a prolonged length of time life quickly falls to the laws of thermodynamics.

In reproduction this gives rise to a great need for fidelity. When reproducing life must protect the integrity of its information. Unless both the ability to gather energy and the ability to reproduce is successfully transmitted that branch of life will cease.

The genetic information transmitted from parent to child is not immune to entropy. Random mutation's introduce variations into genetic code. These mutations increase entropy as they increase the spread over different possible microstates. This mutation is very dangerous to life as the vast majority of mutations either have no effect or have a detrimental one. Life acts to minimize the danger by purposefully limiting this entropy. Most multicellular organisms have DNA repair enzymes that constantly repair and correct damage. Fidelity of information is thus largly maintained between generations.

Fidelity, however, can never be 100%. The environment is not static but dynamic. Life must be able to adapt in response or life will cease. An organism with 100% fidelity of reproduction would never change improve or evolve. It would stand still while its predators and competitors grew more efficient. Long term survival requires mutation and change. For this life needs entropy.

The tradeoff between fidelity and adaptability can be best thought of as the balance between search and exploitation. If replication was without entropy no mutants would arise and evolution would cease. On the other hand, evolution would also be impossible if the entropy/error rate of replication were too high (only a few mutations produce an improvement and most lead to deterioration). Increasing the entropy results in the potential sacrifice of previously acquired information in an attempt to find superior information. Life must master the deadly dance of harvesting entropy. Absorb too much and the species succumbs to mutation tumors and death. Absorb too little and the species stagnates and succumbs to more agile competitors. Life it seems walks the razors edge.

Multicellular Organisms and Collectivism

The single celled organism is an anarchist. The multicelled organism is a collectivist.

Life is in constant search of frontiers for it is only at the frontiers that competitive advantage can be found. The single celled organism is in a constant war for survival. It lives in the base state of nature and any advantage may mean the difference between life and death. The cell with improved locomotion may find food or escape predators, the efficient cell may avoid starvation in lean times, and the larger cell may eat its smaller competitors. As a cell increased its internal complexity, however, diminishing returns accumulate. A single flagella allows a cell to move but having two does not double cellular speed. A larger size may be advantageous but cellular volume increases at a faster rate than its surface area making it difficult to transport enough materials across cellular membranes. Once a cell reaches this point it is economically more efficient to form multicellular organisms and specialize.  

High levels of specialization requires collectives composed of many cells. In the multicellular organism cells trade independence and degrees-of-freedom in exchange for the benefits of size, specialization, and efficiency. Cells in a multicellular organism lose the freedom to independently move and reproduce and their survival becomes dependent on their fellow cells. In exchange they get to be a part of something larger and can benefit from the development of specialization including specialized neural tissues.

Not all cells toe the collective line. Some cells throw off their chains and do whatever they want. When the rebels cells decide they want to divide and keep dividing the process is called cancer. In multicelled organisms cancer is simply the result of accumulated entropy gone wrong. Multicelled organisms like their simpler cousins need to adapt, change, and  evolve. A species with 100% fidelity would have no cancer but it would also never change.

Civilization and Collectivism

Civilization is collective of mutually interdependent multicellular organisms.

Civilization represents the next stage of evolution beyond the multicellular organism. Like the transition from the single to the multicelled organism it arises from the specialization and resultant interdependence of the sentient organisms that comprise it. With the onset of civilization environmental selection gives way to the selection of self-organization. The organization of the system increases spontaneously without this increase being controlled an external system. Civilization is a state of vastly higher organization and specialization. This increase in organization can be looked at objectively as an increase in potential energy.

Civilizations must change, grow and adapt or face stagnation, decay and collapse. They must maintain fidelity (stability over time) while also allowing for adaptability (growth). Self-organization to higher levels of potential energy in a self organizing system is triggered by internal fluctuations or noise aka entropy. These process produce selectively retained ordered configurations and is the order from noise principle. Search and adaptability must be maximized subject to the constraint of maintaining fidelity through time and not losing the information that has already been gained. It is only through balance that optimal outcomes are achieved.

The Future

The next stage in evolution may be the transition to an interstellar species.

If we achieve that goal we will create a system of yet higher order. This will be the entity formed by the interaction of multiple interdependent interstellar civilizations. Such an creation will have a potential energy that dwarfs our current society. It will only form if we find ways to vastly improve our technology and significantly improve our current dissipative structures. These improvements will be made possible by the very entropy we seek to overcome as we make the climb from probability to improbability.

Edit: Post edited 10/30/2015 for clarity and brevity

Anonymint you will have a hard time writing that essay on entropy you mentioned upthread because it is in your definition of entropy that you error. As far as I can tell your misconception regarding entropy is the following.

Increased Entropy -> Increased Freedom-of-Action -> Increased Potential Energy

This argument while not necessarily wrong is an oversimplification.
It skips several intermediate steps and it is in the skipping of these transitions (your mind seems to jump immediately to end states) that you error.

When you are ready I have written the essay below that may (or may not) bring us closer to consensus.  

I have been (very slowly) reading through Armstrong's early prison writings. Like you I have not researched his model yet.  Armstrongs knowledge of history is extensive, some of his opinions are a bit off. So far my initial tentative impression matches that of Fedwatcher from the link Wekkel provided a few pages back.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229998

TPTB is there anyone in this thread who you have not yet called a Marxist idiot? 

The gorilla roar male chest thumping strategy loses its effectiveness when it is repeated in every post. 

Its a complex an interesting debate and one I believe I can win if we dive deeply enough into the technicals.
However, I understand better then most the problem of not having enough time. I also see this debate as growing more time consuming and technical going forward not less.

I accept the offer of temporary ceasefire 

Lithium is also used to treat bipolar disorder but at higher doses around 1800mg per day.
Its bad reputation at high doses is well deserved. Small amounts are probably needed. Its mechanism of action is not well understood.

Amphetamine is a potent CNS stimulant. Like all stimulants it can transiently improve attention and alertness and is used to treat conditions such as narcolepsy. Recreational use of any CNS stimulants including the more potent cousin drug methamphetamine "crystal meth" (which is metabolized into  amphetamine in the body) has substantial potential downsides.

I do not believe they are. However, to go further we will need to take this discussion to a more technical level and clarify some terms.

Please provide your definition of entropy.

Anonymint I will try but I suspect the attempt will be futile. You have a blind spot. It is subtle yet ingrained into your personality type. It distorts your worldview and despite your formidable reasoning skills drives you to error.

ENFP personality types are prone to be highly emotional. They often devolve into counter-productive emotional outbursts when criticized or in conflict. They are logical but as a group tend to disregard logic when it conflicts with their core principles. Your myopia appears interwoven into principle and I suspect it may not be possible for you to correct it.

None of the points I quoted upthread are mutually exclusive. That fact that they appear so to you relates to your erroneous dismissal of a core quality of entropy. Thaaanos outlined this succinctly when he stated that agents and systems are threatened by internal entropy accumulation. He is correct. Your counter that a decentralized Knowledge Age scales exponentially with network effects is true yet irrelevant. Such exponential scaling will only allow for progressive transitions to higher (not infinite) entropy levels. A Knowledge Age would raise the Error Threshold over time not eliminate it. Nor would a Knowledge Age in any way change the fundamental fact that entropy beyond error thresholds will destroy previously acquired knowledge.
 
Your arguments against mutation, fitness, and efficiency simplify into “we cannot accurately measure it therefore we cannot define so it must not exist” The only true aspect of this argument is your comments that these are difficult to measure. Your argument leads to the logical conclusion that we can never truly know the exact error threshold of society and should therefore error on the side of caution.  

Your block prevents you from following my prior arguments regarding the collapse of collectivism. Such a collapse would lead to a lower energy state. You apparently cannot see that the actual collapse itself is one of runaway uncontrolled entropy. Such a collapse is an exergonic reaction. Entropy rises beyond an error threshold and destroys the information content of the system leading to a lower energy state.



I do not expect you to follow this argument. To accept it would mean disregarding your core principal that entropy is always good and more entropy is always better. For an ENFP principles are paramount.    

Unfortunately I have come to the regrettable, logical conclusion that you place emotion and preference over logic while believing you adhere strictly to logic. This illusion may even be convincing to yourself.

How much is 20,000 acres in eastern Chaco going for these days?

Haha and just what probability have you assigned to this actually happening.  

In the interests of being a good sport, however, I will restrain myself and only quote the recent points that I do believe are correct on all counts.

Nope you learn something new every day. At first glance it looks like they have not programmed in either optimal foraging theory or the risk of severe injury or death (that even stronger animals face) when they engage in physical violence into their simulation yet.

I showed that that in a system without hierarchial structure failure to converge to a fitness landscape will occur if entropy exceeds an critical level. I did so with a simplified biological model where this result can be shown definitively and mathamatically. The same model shows a lack entropy will also result in a failure to converge and that increasing entropy will increase the rate of convergence until an inflection point is reached. Pushing entropy beyond this inflection point will slow convergence. Beyond the error threshold the system won't converge at all.

You have countered that this model is not applicaple to real human societies which are obviously far more complex than simple nuclaic acid chains. You also countered that such extreme entropy will never occur in human societies since we naturally self organize to follow leaders (thought leaders, religious leaders, politicians, gang leaders, warlords, ect).

The applicability of the model is a fair challenge. However, I see little reason to think that the same general rules do not apply to our more complex society. You correctly pointed out that there is an asymmetry of systemic risk today with the risk of collectivism far exceeding the risks of individualism. I agree, however, the reason our current system is dangerous is not because it is excessivly rigid. A system that was mearly excessivly ordered would still eventually (if very slowly) converge on optimal outcomes. The system poises a systemic risk because it is grossly unsustainable.

The true risks arise from possibility of complete systemic collapse. This raises the specter of the Mad Max scenario. It is possible that an unstable order will breakdown so completly that entropy will rise uncontrollable and rapidly. Our society (like the simple biological model) can also exceed an error threshold. This occurs when knowledge is systemically destroyed rather than created. Think worldwide loss of electricity, nulcear holocaust, survival of the fittest with mass starvation. These are all extreme entropy scenarios where knowledge would be systemically lost.  


I would agree with this and add to it that order becomes cancer the moment it becomes unsustainable and incapable of self correcting. Chaos is the risk that arises from the inevitable death of the cancer.

Taleb's Antifragility Concept  



Edit: For those who never saw the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oAv-6i6iMI

Coinits OROBTC has been around a lot longer than I. It seems probable that I hold the same advantage on you. Age grants wisdom and OROBTC's advice in this area is very sound. I am comfortable going on record to state that your prediction above will not happen.

TPTB I agree with your comments that the transition to a knowledge age is profound and a game changer. I suspect if we drilled down to the core of our remaining divergence we would once again find that it is largely a philosophical one.

As we are both busy at the moment lets table that (probably unresolvable) debate for another day.
We agree more than we disagree. That will suffice for now.

Leverage is a complex issue. There are several problems with leverage as it exists today.

1) Leverage in an opaque system disrupts the information transmission mechanisms of markets. In a system without leverage the current price represents what people are willing to trade. In such an environment a change in price conveys significant information a large price decline for example would indicate an excess supply or a expected drop in demand.

When we allow opaque leverage it allows large large players to create artificial market signals manipulating the price up and down. Other market players are forced to either act on such information and thus transfer wealth to the manipulator or completely discard short and medium term price information which is inefficient.

2) Our current markets do not self anneal to correct for the imbalances that result from point #1 above. You simply do not see large players moving to counter such manipulation. It is far more profitable for the whales to support each other. When someone acts against group interest they are punished.
This mafia like enforcement mechanism can best be seen in the example of Porsche which had the gall to directly challenge large financial player's who were massively and nakedly shorting Volkswagon. Porsche eventually controlled a 42.6 percent block of VW shares (and with options to purchase another 31.5 percent).

The problem was that these 31.5% did not really exist they were naked options sold by wall street. The massive size of these options highlights the extent of current market manipulation. When it became clear that wall street had been called on it's non existent options Volkswagon briefly became the most valuable company in the world.
 


3) When a player such as Porsche challenges the financial elite they are "dealt with" by whatever means necessary. Porsche should have made billions on those options and the individuals who sold them driven into bankruptcy. However, because Porsche had dared to challenge naked market manipulation that did not happen. Porsche was instead "dealt with" it was cut off from all bank funding driving it into insolvency. Its underlying position, however, was so profitable that it would have been able to obtain Arab investors. Behind the scenes dealings prevented that from happening as well. Porsche was forced to liquidate those options. The CEO and CFO of Porsche had to resign and still face bogus criminal charges that have dragged out for years now. They have been made into examples to dissuade anyone from trying something similar. A brief summary of the Porsche saga can be found in the link below.
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/0911_porsche_and_volkswagen_what_happened/

In an environment such as ours where leverage is obviously facilitating further corruption it is very difficult to show that its theoretical benefits of optimal price discovery, hedging, and marketplace harmonization exist at all. Such benefits likely do exist in a transparent system. Perhaps blockchain technology will enable us to realize these gains.

The removal (or realistically minimization) of coercion from society does not equal infinite degrees-of-freedom which is impossible. However, the call for maximization of degrees-of-freedom is fundamentally a call for balance not anarchy. Coercion is synonymous with reductions in degrees-of-freedom and coercion arises naturally from the extremes of both ordered and chaotic systems. This is largely unrelated to leverage.



The Catholic church banned usury during the First Council of Nicaea 325 AD in response to the excesses of debt and currency debasement in the Roman Empire. It was an understandable if knee-jerk reaction to what was occurring in the Roman Monetary System at the time.



Obviously this did not help them much and probably made things worse so I would not dispute that this was a failed solution.

I am not opposed to fractional reserve provided the institution conducting it is both transparent and not backstopped by any form of collective guarantee.
That far from the situation we have today. By Fiat I am referring to any form of currency that is created without cost and who's acceptance is enforced through coercion and violence.


Please substitute (Centralized debt-based systems) in the sentence above as it was unclear in its original form. Do we still disagree? If so we can explore the issue further.


I am not opposed to usury. I am opposed to the use of coercion to enforce usury which is an enslavement mechanism. We used to have a system where one could easily declare bankruptcy and start over with the only consequence being a loss of whatever collateral was put up to secure the loan. That was a good system. Allow usury for economic efficiency but let the lender beware.  

@thaaanos Your link looks interesting but it is a bit long so I will have to watch it later.

So I finally got around to reading the linked articles by Denninger. An interesting read. The assumption that leverage allows optimal price discovery, hedging, and marketplace harmonization holds true only in non corrupt and transparent marketplaces. It is a legitimate question if leverage in our current system does anything other then allow for rentier profits.  

As fiat based monetary systems are inherently fraudulent it is understandable to react as Denninger does and attempt to limit leverage which acts as a multiplier of the underlying fraud. Rather then try to battle against leverage which is admittedly a mixed bag it would probably be more efficient to work towards abolishing fiat. If we can accomplish that the problem of leverage may solve itself.

TPTB where we often seem to diverge is in the area of coercion. In my opinion some of the very best of your writings was in your discussion on freedom of action.  


Aminiorex is correct that "levered" debt-based money supplies are a very bad idea. Debt-based systems inherently and progressively restrict the freedom of action of economic participants. Leverage simply accelerates the process. Debt-based systems are used to enslave the vulnerable majority. All forms of coercion, including those that arise naturally from chaotic systems, reduce degrees-of-freedom and overall fitness.  

Have Banks Started The Squeeze?

Are Banks Shutting Down Lending
IMF Warns Regulators to Brace For Global "Liquidity Shock"
http://www.gordontlong.com/Articles/art-2015-04-A-Macro_Insights-Shutting_Down_Lending.htm

I don't think quitting is in the vocabulary of AnonyMint.  

I believe our recent exploration of the solution space between socialism and individualism has been quite interesting.

However, it is important to remember that this debate is not being held in a state of balance but rather one of extreme and worsening imbalance.

In such an environment the arguments of the socialist must be held to a higher standard fully accepting them over individualist counters only if they are foolproof and undeniable.

In this at least we are in 100% agreement.
I genuinely wish you the best of luck in your efforts.

Actually we completely agree on this. Where we appear to differ is that I believe this asymmetry will decline and potentially even reverse as technology advances. That is why I support the development of robust anonymous cryptocurrency while simultaneously hoping that a more elegant solution becomes possible.
 
I am modifying my prior comments in the following manner.

"Anonymity is a desperate and somewhat repulsive unsustainable solution. Unfortunately I have no better or even viable alternatives to offer."

Does that mollify your concerns?